11 email marketing ideas you can use now

It’s a fact of human nature that when we are presented with the same thing over and over again, we become desensitized to it.

If you’ve driven the same commute route for years, there are probably days when you get to work and you realize that you didn’t notice anything along the way. It can be scary.

For this reason, it’s important to mix up what you present to your customers and prospects. That’s why I’ve pulled together 11 email marketing ideas for you to use to freshen up your email campaigns.

Some of these email marketing ideas are fairly specific, others are more like “categories” or “genres” of emails that will interest your list. See how many would be seen as new to your recipients.

Velvet rope emails. You’ve probably seen doormen at hot night clubs man the “velvet rope.” It’s where people line up to get in, but only privileged individuals make it past the velvet rope. In email marketing, these are exclusive offers or information that isn’t available to the general public. Unadvertised sales, articles not published on your blog, early access to sale prices, and “sneak peeks” would fall under this category.

Feedback emails. These emails are asking to hear from the recipients. They can be polls, a simple survey question or two, or an invitation to submit general feedback on a topic or proposal. I’ve found that these get a good response. Many email service providers have built-in polling features, otherwise, you can direct your list to an online poll or survey.

Breaking news emails. People on your list will be pleased to get the latest news about your business. If you’re retail, this could be what you’re ordering for the next season. For B2B, it could be future plans based on how you see your industry evolving. Additions to your staff might be appropriate.

‘Best of’ emails. Pulling together a “Best Blogs of 2016” for example, is a sure winner. Look at which of your posts got the most views and link to those in an email. It’s like crowdsourcing great content. If you’re retail, feature your biggest sellers over a given period of time. This is one of the email marketing ideas that’s easy to pull off.

Special date emails. Make good use of special dates and seasons. This includes holidays, customer anniversaries, and the four seasons. These alone can give you at least 10 to 15 nicely targeted emails each year.

Sales and coupons emails. I suspect most of you are doing this already, but if not, here it is!

Followup emails. If you’ve sent out a sale notice, for example, follow it up when the end date draws near. A ticking time clock is a great motivator. In the same way, re-promoting an event using an angle like “Only 12 seats left!” works extremely well. Leverage scarcity and fear of missing out (FOMO), whenever you can. (By the way, FOMO is a major motivator among Millennials, as Kate Taylor explains in her Entrepreneur article.)

‘We miss you’ emails. Brick and mortar businesses need a loyalty program to pull this one off, it shouldn’t be any problem for an online-only business. After a few months of not engaging with a customer, send an email and include some kind of discount. Keeping customers active is a lot less expensive than finding new customers.

Thank you notes. It pays to be polite. When I first put this on my list, I was thinking of autoresponders sending out thank-you emails after an engagement of some kind. However, also train your staff to send out personal thank-you emails – and/or written notes – to their clients and other business associates.

Digest emails. I like digest emails that link to great content from around the Internet. The important thing here is to present each item in your digest in a way that gives the reader enough information to determine if the article is worth reading.

Newsletter. This is a “catch all” category. Almost any of the above elements can be edited into a newsletter. You could use it to publish some of your content, link to content on other websites, include a coupon, and feature some news items.

Is it time you added variety to your emails? Gear up and use some of these 11 email marketing ideas to breathe new life into the image your project and the relationships you have established with the people on your list.